Tuesday night at Coca-Cola Coliseum could have been dubbed the “Rebecca Leslie revenge game”. The Ottawa Charge forward completed a heroic comeback for her team, potting the overtime winner – her second goal of the game – as the Charge edged the Toronto Sceptres 4-3 to rally from a three-goal deficit.
“I think for us at that point in the game, we were just trying to get pucks on the net. I was trying to do that in any way possible and hope for a rebound or a goal,” Leslie said. “But yeah, playing along with Brianne Jenner and Sarah Wozniewicz made it a lot of fun tonight and we’re just excited to continue to build and grow as a team.”
Leslie played her first season with PWHL Toronto in 2024 before signing with Ottawa as a free agent in the summer of that year.
The Sceptres meanwhile – already missing Renata Fast for a second straight game – played with just five defenders for most of the game after Allie Munroe sustained an apparent leg injury in a first period collision with Brianne Jenner. Munroe left the ice with the assistance of teammates, unable to put any weight on her left leg, and did not return.
“It looked pretty dangerous,” said Toronto coach Troy Ryan. “The only message that medical (staff) gave me is…it’s not as bad as it looked.”
The game started auspiciously for the visitors. After Ottawa nearly scored on their own goal, Toronto defender Anna Kjellbin launched the puck towards the net from the right point and forward Maggie Connors opened the scoring with a deflection past goaltender Gwyneth Philips.
Toronto’s lead was extended to 2-0 when Daryl Watts picked the top corner above Philips’s glove hand for her second goal of the year. In the middle frame, Ella Shelton gave the Sceptres more breathing room, pouncing on a bad clearing attempt by Philips and wristing the puck past the netminder for her second tally of the season.
However, Shelton’s goal seemed to serve as a wake-up call for the Charge. Leslie finally got her team on the board, just 14 seconds later, as her bad angle shot from outside the icing circle eluded Raygan Kirk.
Then before the second period ended, Gabbie Hughes connected on the power play, getting inside position on Sceptres penalty killer Jesse Compher to convert a cross-ice feed from Jenner – Hughes’s first goal of the year.
A bungled line change by the Sceptres in the third period led to the equalizer, Ottawa’s Brooke Hobson finding the puck in the neutral zone, then practically skating the perimeter of Toronto’s end untouched before firing the puck past Kirk, much to the dejection of the Toronto bench and the 8,108 fans in attendance.
“I think with some our decisions and some of the plays we made, we took ourselves out of it,” lamented Ryan. If I have one pet peeve, it’s line changes. I just don’t understand why at this level, we’d be making poor line changes that cost us. That’s just unacceptable.”
The stage was set for Leslie’s eventual heroics; Toronto’s Compher taking a late penalty to give the Charge an overtime power play. Leslie circled the offensive zone before firing the puck through a maze of players to net the winner. It was her first career game-winner and multi-goal game.
“Obviously, we had a little adversity down three goals, but we just stuck together and found our legs, and I thought our speed was impactful tonight and we found a way to win it,” Ottawa coach Carla MacLeod said.
The Sceptres’ next game after the Christmas break is on Saturday, December 27 when the team visits the Montreal Victoire for a game at Bell Centre.
